What single word best characterizes policy responses in this on-going financial crisis? “BAILOUT”. It goes something like this. You take a lot of risk and reap lots of rewards (be it in pay, bonus, or social programs). You get … Continue reading →

Why don’t we just admit that the current financial and regulatory system is dysfunctional? We face two fundamental problems. First, we need to clean the financial system — close weak banks more aggressively, encourage bankruptcies/foreclosures, and free good assets held … Continue reading →

There are two key questions: (1) is the improvement in the job picture sustainable and (2) if it is, how long will it take get back where we started in December 2007? While there is considerable disagreement in terms of … Continue reading →

Amazing the difference one day makes in the employment outlook. Yesterday, the market shot up because “only” 512,000 applied for initial claims — down from 532,000 the previous week. We saw banners: “Employment Situation Improvement,” “We Have Turned the Corner”, … Continue reading →

There is a lot of finger pointing going on one year after Lehman declared bankruptcy. Most of those fingers are pointing to Lehman and the way the bankruptcy was handled. However, that is a very simplistic view of what happened … Continue reading →

Just because the unemployment rate dropped from 9.5% to 9.4% does not mean we are out of danger. This is how I think the economy will unfold. The scenario is consistent with what I have been posting for the last … Continue reading →

On June 19, 2009, a premiere economic consulting firm (not to be named) forecasted a job loss of 275,000 in June. To me, this seemed odd. The May drop of “only” 345,000 jobs (unrevised) seemed like noisy data. There was … Continue reading →

The Duke-CFO Survey was released today and the news is grim. One of the big challenges is to reconcile the growth in confidence against the hard data. Consumers as well as CFOs are more confident. However, our survey shows that … Continue reading →